 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Sandra
Date: 2000-07-20 03:45
Hi there,
I'm sure you've all noticed the same thing but there are SO many musicians with egos the size of China. DO you think it's better or worse or the same as other professions?
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Author: Cathy
Date: 2000-07-20 04:01
oh...you have a lot friends that play brass instruments too? anyway from what my mother (a nurse) says, surgeons have some pretty awful egos too. -Cathy
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Author: Sara
Date: 2000-07-20 04:06
I think that having a an incedibly huge ego helps you out in competitions auditions, at least it seems that way in high school. The people who know that their really god and get told that all the time, can walk in to the audition room knowing that they already made it the only thing they want to know is how high they made it. Personally, I know I have an ego problem; but its the other way with me, I'm too pestimistict toward my playing and I'm probably too hard on myself too. I have just recently been told by my teacher that theoretically, I'll never get very far in music if I don't develope a bigger and stronger ego. I know that this was totally off the subject, Sorry!!
Sara
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Author: J. Butler
Date: 2000-07-20 04:09
I don't think it is any worse than other professions. Musicians I know are very cordial. Yes, some do have ego's but I bet it is no worse than pro sports, gymnastics, dance or just about any other performance profession.
J. Butler
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Author: Allen Cole
Date: 2000-07-20 05:27
Ego is an important part of performing--it's the thing that lets you look the audience in the eye. It's going to be hard to sell your product to the audience if you don't like it yourself.
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Author: Willie
Date: 2000-07-20 05:45
I kinda disagree there. I've known many in the arts over the years who could put on a fabulous performance that didn't have a big ego. They simply had the strong desire to perform and please the the audience. Some could posibly be classified as exibitionistic maybe, but not egotistical. Some folks, like jazz musicians are nut cases. When you rehearse with a jazz group, you spend a lot of time laughing 'cuz there's always somebody doing or saying something funny. Concert band and classical players are generaly more serious, but they too can show the human side.
Ego, the love of ones self is found everywhere you find someone who thinks they are the best and they want everyone to know it. Buddy Rich, the drummer actually billed himself as the worlds best drummer. Yes he was good, but I don't think he was the best.
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Author: Eoin McAuley
Date: 2000-07-20 07:17
I believe that certain instruments attract those with huge egos more than others. The egoist will go for an instrument where he or she can shine, such as Trumpet, Horn, Drums or Soprano Voice. You probably don't find too many egotistical viola players, because the viola is generally used as an accompaniment. In the choir, the altos play a similar role and tend to be very amenable to suggestions by the conductor.
Where the clarinet fits in to this scheme I don't know. The clarinet is probably more of an accompaniment instrument. Solo clarinetists I've seen don't attempt to dominate the stage in the way I've seen solo pianists, solo violinist or solo guitar players do. So clarinetists probably tend towards the less egotistical.
Having said that, I've an ego the size of a continent!
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Author: Kai
Date: 2000-07-20 08:09
Yes, I have had Brass-playing friends telling me that egos are really quite essential to soloistic playing and it does hold some truth as far as I can see from where I am.
However, we also agreed that many musicians are terribly fragile notwithstanding the amount of ego that one may originally hold!
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Author: Pam
Date: 2000-07-20 11:53
I think huge egos run in and out of all parts of society in general. Maybe it's more a part of who some people are than what they do. But,that being said, maybe those with big egos tend to pick jobs, instruments, etc. where they will have the opportunity to shine more.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-07-20 12:13
I'd like to differentiate between those people with large egos ("I'm good, and I love myself") and those with self-confidence ("I've worked at it, and I'll do fine at the audition"). Very few of the fine players I know are egotistical, but all have high self-confidence. They've prepared well, they enjoy playing to and for an audience, and they're pretty humble when you talk to them. They know they're good (or they wouldn't be up there on the stage), but they don't talk about it. The good ones don't need to ...
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Author: Mario
Date: 2000-07-20 12:46
Mark is putting right on. There is a big difference between "big ego" and "self-confidence". Actually, people who are seen as having "big ego" often lack self-confidence and burry this ugly little secret by making a lot of noise. Pathetic!
At any rate, ego level of musicians is not worse than in many other professions. If you want to see people with big ego, talk to young IT professionals. The press everyday says how scarce they are, how well-paid they need to be, how they need to be threated like prima dona at work, etc. Try convincing a Database administrator (a fairly simple form of IT work) with no real formal education and two long years of experience making 100K per year that he has a couple of things to learn from his elders to see what a big ego looks like. The reason today's software is so crappy is that too much of it is created by young ignorant egoistical software maniacs who still need 10 year of experience before knowing which side is up. A clarinet section playing like software is created would be out of tune squeeking constantly, would have absolutely no notion of ensemble playing, would miss most non-trivial runs systematically, and would quit in anger should the conductor suggest softly that maybe, just maybe, there is a better way.
Compared to that, musicians are doing great and appear to be balanced group with the usual extremes. I personnaly enjoy the company of musicians very much.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2000-07-20 14:47
I pretty much echo the above. We have had a goodly number of "big names" performing with our local Symphony as "headliners". Only with a couple of the "stars" did our present and former [me, etc] musicians find a high,[I'm better than you are] irritating ego in rehearsal or in "after-glow" conversation. I recall specifically talking with Eddie Daniels , along with our local cl'ists, what a NICE GUY! Don
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Author: Lelia
Date: 2000-07-20 16:17
I like Mark's distinction between confidence and conceit. The egos of the musicians I've known seem to follow about the same bell curve as the rest of society, from shy, quiet mice to strutting, screaming peacocks. Sometimes mini-cultures seem to develop that foster one type of behavior over another. I worked one summer (1967) as a temporary low-level Munchkin for the National Council of the Metropolitan Opera, when it first moved to Lincoln Center. Sometimes I had to run messages back and forth between National Council and performers. As a gofer, I noticed a huge difference between the Met's own singers and those of the Hamburg State Opera, which performed a guest season there that summer. The big-name soloists from both the Met and the Hamburg generally treated Met employees graciously, and acted self-confident without arrogance. They'd "made it." They didn't have to build themselves up by tearing someone else down. Unfortunately, many of the Met's chorus singers acted like prima donnas and seemed to enjoy lording it over a minimum wage nobody. They treated me like dirt. I dreaded having to go ask one of them to sign a form or do anything else, because so many of them acted like it was such an imposition on their valuable time. The German Hamburg singers, from divas to chorus, went out of their way to be considerate, kind and helpful. I loved running errands to the opera when they were in town! I couldn't generalize about "opera singers" from this experience, because two different groups of singers, in the same setting, behaved like two different species.
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2000-07-20 16:35
I tend to think of ego in terms of primate behavior, and agree with Lelia. In my experience, the top of the heap can afford to be kind, its the second down that tends to bite and try to claw their way. All this is aped, so to speak, in various primate cultures...Perhaps the alpha types are self-confident.
I will paraphrase my eldest son on our zoo trip, who observed that the dominant lion seemed to be acting in a rather immature way, picking on his brother and all :-)
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Author: steve
Date: 2000-07-20 21:43
This is an interesting thread....I think mark and mario have hit it on the head, and I agree that it's a fine line between egotistical and self-confident behavior. the paradox is that you have to be very confident _and_ have a strong sense of yourself to project what's needed to an audience, in any endeavour, from playing the clarinet to giving a seminar...
I think a functional definition is in order...egotistical behavior inspires loathing in others and makes it difficult for a person to work as part of a team, and reduces a team to struggling individuals. self confidence inspires others, and makes a team function better than the sum of the individual talents...self confident people make good leaders....does any of this make sense?
I function in two worlds...the corporate world, and until very recently, the musicians world...no aspersions cast, but in both worlds, and I think in all worlds, there are more horses' asses than horses...about the same number, evenly distributed...but there are more than enough wonderful people...
s.
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Author: SusieQ
Date: 2000-07-21 02:03
My 13 year old son plays percussion and has been experiencing other musicians ego's already and he is only in the 7th grade. After the end of the year concert he congratulated the other percussionists in the other 7th grade band with a "job well done", and the other boys said "we know we are good". The whole year they have been telling him how much better they are and that he "sucks". I told him that there is no place in the band room at school for that kind of attitude. The fact is my son is an excellent percussionist, but he also knows that there is always room for improvement and I have told him over and over again, that once the ego gets in the way the improvement stops. I will be interesting to follow these boys progress with such big heads already. It was a great lesson for him to learn at such a young age.
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Author: Meredith H
Date: 2000-07-21 04:13
Ok let's not pick on all brass musicians too much, I do play both clarinet and horn. I agree with the earlier threads that some types of instruments draw people with larger egos. In the brass band that goes to the cornet section. I play in the horn section and all we basically do is accompaniment ie form chords and play off beats, absolutely no glory at all. As such our section is composed of quite unassuming people (I really like my section, we all support each other and no one tries to over play the others). On the other hand I wouldn't sit with the super competitive cornet players if I had to. I also prefered playing the lower clarinet parts.
For the past six year we have had James Morrison (you probably haven't heard of him in the US but he is an amazing jazz mucians, famous for his trumpet playing but he plays a damn fine clarinet and sax as well) do a concert in our town. Our community band supports him for about 5 numbers and then his band play for the rest of the night. He is just the nicest person you can imagine despite his fame. He must know he is good yet he quite happily performs with our small town band.
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Author: Allen Cole
Date: 2000-07-21 04:15
Sometimes the strongest outward egos are some of the weakest inward egos. Lots of bluffing. Carry your sax in a flight case, so you don't have to play it in order to psyche the other guy out. So yes, egos do sometimes get out of hand. A couple of quips from a friend who directs a community band always stay in the forefront of my mind.
1. "Professional musicians are such ASSES!"
2. "How can you tell that you've got a music major in your group? He's angry because he's not your best player."
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Author: Jerry K.
Date: 2000-07-21 14:33
Ditto all of the above, especially the distinction between conceit and self-confidence.
It's particularly galling, though, when the untalented conceited person becomes top banana, i.e., first chair, or, if in business, manager of your department. But such is life and I think patience is a virtue in these situations because usually talent will out. Sooner or later, the authority who appoints first chairs and managers will recognize the better talent. When this doesn't happen, a change of organization will usually brings justice.
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Author: Kontragirl
Date: 2000-07-21 23:25
The more people I meet, the less I think it has to do with the instrument they play. I met this one guy. He was the nicest guy, and you would never guess by talking to him that he was a trumpet player. We have one clarinet player who has a bigger ego than anyone I know. He walked into the audition room and said, "I don't know why I even bother, everyone knows I'm going to be first chair." Excuse me?
Me on the other hand, yes I have an ego, but if the guy above has an ego the size of China, mine's the size of Australia.
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Author: Stephanie H.
Date: 2000-07-22 02:21
Hmmm...I don't really know about other musicians' egos, but I do know that the band directors I've had have had some not just the size of China, but pretty much the size of the universe all together!
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2000-07-27 07:55
2nd Clarinetist is by no means an egoist. If so,they will be fired.
My impressions of instruments players:
clarinetist: Good papa or mama type with 5 children to feed.
flute: snobish. Narscist.
oboe: neuotically obsessed(they always worries about reed plugging). Inhaled air is always oversupply.
Clarinetist is the most benign one among them.
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